In December, I began our department's two-part qualifying exam journey with my research proposal department seminar and subsequent closed-door oral defense. Following a successful research proposal defense, I recently took my prelim exam, which is a closed-door oral exam in all areas of Soil Science. I'm very happy to announce that I passed and am officially a Ph.D. candidate!
Another field season is officially in the books! In slight disbelief that this summer marked my 7th consecutive summer conducting fieldwork in and around the University of Michigan Biological Station (yet, my first where seemingly everything that could have possibly gone wrong, did in fact go wrong). Despite the unprecedented field stress, it's always a joy introducing undergraduates to the place I first discovered I could be a scientist as an undergraduate myself. Next up: RNA extractions.
Thank you to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me the opportunity to give my oral presentation, titled: Assessing ecosystem-level response to recovery from historically high rates of anthropogenic nitrogen deposition, at the 2023 annual meeting in Portland, OR! I had a great time at my first ESA and look forward to the meetings to come!